Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, Oct 10: Notwithstanding the Public Service Guarantee Act, people are facing problems in getting computerized Driving Licenses and renewal of the old one as the Regional Transport Office Jammu is facing acute shortage of PVC cards and printing material used for preparing DL Cards.
The situation has forced the Transport authorities to temporarily suspend the driving trials of new cases while more than one thousand applications for issuance of fresh driving cards in replacement to the expired one are lying with the RTO Jammu, official sources informed the Excelsior.
Even as the required PVC cards, ribbons and printing films are almost out of stock for the last three months, the office of Transport Commissioner has so far failed to procure the same owing to some technical reasons, sources added.
Pertinent to mention that the office of Transport Commissioner procures the PVC cards, ribbons and printing films, which are used for computerized Driving Licenses. The supply to Regional Transport Offices in Jammu, Kashmir and ARTO offices at district level is made by the TC office.
However, fresh procurement for this year could not be made owing to inadequate number of bidders and some technical reasons thus resulting into re-tendering.
On the other hand, the unprecedented delay in procurement of the printing material and cards led to shortage of the same with RTO Jammu and RTO Kashmir where the number of applicants for computerized Driving Licenses is maximum.
Owing to shortage of printing material and cards for the last three months, issuance of computerized driving license cards is getting delayed for long resulting into harassment of the people, particularly those who have applied for renewal of the commercial licenses.
As per a court direction, old manual licenses are renewed and replaced with computerized one only.
The situation has put the RTO authorities in a tizzy as they are finding it difficult to issue the computerized licenses to the applicants despite a set timeframe for the same under Public Service Guarantee Act of the State.
According to the sources, more than one thousand cases of renewal are pending with the RTO Jammu. Despite suspension of driving tests for new licenses, the backlog of is increasing day by day as around 150 applications are received daily for the renewal of licenses, sources added.
When contacted, RTO Jammu Ravinder Kotwal admitted the delay in issuance of computerized Licenses and suspension of driving tests due to shortage of PVC cards, printing film and ribbons.
To deal with the emergency situation, supply of the printing material and around 2000 cards is reaching here directly from New Delhi by tomorrow, he informed adding that the things would be normalized soon and suspended driving tests are also likely to be resumed by next week while priority would be to clear the backlog of renewal cases.
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